In the Jan. 4 issue of The Peninsula Beacon, I expressed my disappointment in advertisements that pose as stories, which are located primarily on the Business & Services page toward the end of the paper. This week’s letter “Shame on The Beacon” addresses one such ad published Jan.11 concerning the Web site affairmatch.com. There was no label alerting readers that the text was, in fact, written and submitted by an advertiser who paid to have it placed on that page with other similar ads.
While the San Diego Community Newspaper Group has yet to enact a policy of clearly labeling all content on the Business & Services page as advertisement, the page itself has since been placed inside the classified section. Because the page in question is no longer adjacent to any editorial content produced by myself or The Beacon’s reporters, I hope that it will prove less ambiguous to readers.
Though not a solution to the ethical problem of pawning paid and biased text as legitimate reporting, I believe that it is a step in the right direction. And in the meantime, I will continue to push for the Business & Services ads to be labeled as such.
Blake Jones, Editor, The Peninsula Beacon